The natural gas and electricity industries provide a service that is critical to health and safety in this nation. Yet recent events have illustrated why the interdependence of these industries merits careful attention. In short, this nation must ensure that outages and reliability problems are not the result of the lack of coordination between the electricity and gas industries.

As we have seen over the last few years, natural gas is being used much more heavily in electricity generation. This trend appears likely to accelerate as coal-powered generation is retired, renewable energy resources require more backup by natural gas plants, and low natural gas prices encourage more use of gas. And recent problems, most importantly, the Southwest outage in February 2011, suggest that more resources must be allocated to planning for the increased use of natural gas to generate electricity.

In February 2012 Commissioner Moeller requested comments on the Coordination between the Natural Gas and Electricity Markets Request | Notice of Docket No. | Comments Filed